A retired policeman, Uduak Sunday Akpan, has sued the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris and two others, for allegedly withholding his salaries and other entitlements.
The suit filed by his lawyer, John Ainetor, before the National Industrial Court (NIC), Abuja, has as defendants, the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).
Uduak, who retired as a Superintendent of Police (SP) in 2015, said he was owed salaries and allowances for 13 months when he was suspended.
The claimant said he joined the NPF on January 7, 1980, but was suspended on July 2, 1997, and his salaries and emoluments were withheld until his reinstatement in 2010.
He is, therefore, praying the court to, among others, order the defendants to pay him N5,505,318.00, being the total amount of his unpaid salaries, allowances and emoluments from July 2, 1997 to December 31, 2009.
Uduak also seeks an order directing the defendants to pay him N10 million, being damages for the delay and refusal of the defendants to pay him.
He also wants the court to order the defendants to pay him 21 per cent interest on the judgment sum, from the date of the judgment till full payment.
The defendants were yet to file their responses when the case was mentioned yesterday and Justice Edith Agbakoba adjourned till March 22.
Tag: Unpaid wages
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Policeman sues IGP, others for unpaid wages
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Sunshine Stars staff cry out over unpaid wages
Sunshine Stars staff may go on strike if the club management refuse to their outstanding salaries.
The NPFL side’s staff hve not received their salaries for the past seven months and have threatened to withdraw from all off-field duties if their outstanding debts are not cleared before April 30, 2015.
The backroom workers claim they were abandoned by former chairman Akin Akinbobola led board when it became clear they would not win the Nigeria Professional League title, and the new board led by John Ola Mafo is not making any bold effort to ensure they are remunerated.
A staff who spoke to Goal after the Owena Waves’ 3-0 victory against El Kanemi Warriors on condition of anonymity revealed that Sunshine Stars are disaster-prone this season because workers’ welfare are not taken seriously by the new board.
“We have worked hard for seven good months in starvation and the Ondo State Football Agency board seems not be interested in our predicament. Our families are not happy with us because we are unable to provide their needs, yet the club board expects us to be wishing the team well during their league outings. How is that possible?
“When Prince Mafo came on board, he made it clear that he would only focus on the welfare of the players. Some of us were sacked for asking for our entitlements while others were handed stern warnings.
“Before we take to the streets or go on strike, we want to appeal to the state governor and the club management to help us find lasting solution because we are seriously starving and in huge debt.”
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Day Bayelsa local govt workers protested unpaid wages
Workers in local government areas in Bayelsa State are having a tough and difficult time. They are hungry and as the saying goes, a hungry man is an angry man. Though a worker deserves his wages, the old aphorism no longer applies to Bayelsa local government employees.
They have worked without wages. In fact, they are owed salary arrears and allowances between five to nine months. Workers in Sagbama and Nembe, the local government areas of Governor Seriake Dickson and his deputy, Rear Admiral John Jonah (retd), respectively are the worst hit. They have since downed tools. Yenagoa, which habours the state capital is also in the list of councils unable to pay their salaries.
The remaining five councils of Ogbia, Brass, Kolokuma-Opokuma, Ekeremor and Southern Ijaw also owed their workers different arrears of salaries. Indeed, workers in some local government areas have already shut down their secretariats to protest months of unpaid salaries.
The angry workers said they were dying of hunger because their local government chairmen were owing them between five to nine months salaries. They were also aggrieved that while they go to bed hungry, the elected office holders are smiling to the bank with their salaries paid up to date.
The workers under the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) recently barricaded the council secretariats and said the facilities would remain under lock and key until their salaries and allowances were paid.
In Yenagoa, placard-bearing workers stormed the council’s secretariat at about 6am, chanting songs to draw public attention to their plight.
The workers held placards with messages such as “The chairman has not told us the problem; the political appointees have been paid up to date. We are owed for four months”, “NYSC workers have not got their allowances”, “Our chairman is a sadist”, “Internally generated revenues are in private account, not in council treasury”, “Council workers are not slaves, they should be treated as human beings”.
Speaking on the plight of workers, the Chairman, NULGE, Yenagoa LGA chapter, Mr. Oyoro Kwaka, said the council has been owing them since October 2015.
He asked the council chairman to disclose what how he spent the council’s allocation for November and December.
He alleged that the alerts of revenue arising from the IGR of the council were usually received in private bank account instead of the council’s account.
Oyoro said: “They are owing us October, November, December and January. Our children are at home; they have been sent back home from school because we cannot pay their school fees.
“We did not have money for Christmas, for the first time in this local government, we could not afford to buy a grain of rice for Christmas, yet the politicians bought rice, cows, goats, wrappers and so many other things for themselves. Even now, the politicians have been paid up to date but they refuse to pay us our own salaries for four months.
“Allocations have been coming. In our council, the revenue goes to the chairman’s personal account. The revenue unit has not alert, the chairman gets the alert if any money is paid to the council account. It is not done in any organization, this is a local govermment, the money collected from revenue should go to the local government account.
“If he refuses to pay us we will not vacate this place, we have the backing of the security agencies and we have announced on the state radio that we are embarking on this protest.”
The Chairman, Medical and Health Workers Union (MHWU), Mr. Oyaba Diemebonso, said the workers in the council were owed for five months.
But the Head of Local Government Administration, Yenagoa, Dr. Ovienadu Torutein, admitted that the council was owing some categories of workers for three months and others for two months.
He said: “Yes, we are owing. Some for three months and some for two months. The reason is that the allocation we receive from the Federal Government is not enough and it affects not only this local government but others.
“We are even trying to meet up with payment of salaries more than other local government areas.
“We have a salary wage bill of about N97million or thereabouts and if we add that of the politicians, it is about N108m and we receive less than that. On the average, we are receiving between N70m and N80 million after the statutory deductions.”
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Unpaid wages: An abuse of labour rights
Just when one thinks the ugly past of working without pay, was over for Nigerian civil servants, the workers’ survival and welfare have again come under severe attack for over five months, and this is due to no fault of the workers.
Ordinarily, the average civil servant is usually paid mere pittance by the state. But even the pittance now seems a luxury as about two-thirds of the states of the Federation are unjustifiably in arrears of civil servants’ salaries and benefits.
The law seems weak in aiding and rescuing civil servants whose livelihood is being emasculated by their employers. The helplessness of the current situation, in which the civil servants have found themselves, exposes the fundamental limitations of the Nigerian Labour Law.
The Nigerian Labour Act represents the key framework for the protection of every class of workers including skilled and unskilled workers, private and public workers as defined under Section 91 of the Labour Act. The Nigerian Civil Servant is therefore not excluded from the protection of the Nigerian Labour Act.
The Nigerian Labour Act not only makes provision for employment issues but also protects wages. Section (7) of the Labour Act provides that a worker should have a written statement that specifies the rate, manner and period of payment of his salary. Section (15) of the Act provides that;”wages shall become due and payable at the end of each period for which the contract is expressed to subsist, that is to say, daily, weekly or at such other period as may be agreed upon. Provided that, where the period is more than one month, the wages shall become due and payable at intervals not exceeding one month”
The combined interpretation of the provisions of Sections 7 and 15 of the Labour Act above would mean that every employer, inclusive of the government, is bound to issue within three months, a detailed letter of appointment stating the amount of the agreed wages and period of payment.
Upon fulfilling those responsibilities, the employer shall further ensure that such wages are paid at the agreed time and if the employment subsists for more than a month, then such payment shall be paid monthly. A Month, according to Section 18(1) of the Interpretation Act Cap I23 LFN 2004, is defined as meaning a calendar month reckoned, according to the Gregorian calendar. It would therefore mean employers shall make payment at the end of each Gregorian calendar month.
Unfortunately, while the Labour Act makes provision for the protection of workers in Nigeria, it has failed to provide any sanction on any person who fails to obey the letter and the spirit of the Act. The non-provision of both penal and civil sanctions is a recipe for anarchy in the labour market especially as to payment of wages in Nigeria.
Scandalously, the state governments, who ordinarily should be the most protective of their workers welfare, are now the biggest culprits needlessly owing salaries of civil servants for periods up to five months.
This executive lawlessness is subjecting civil servants to economic hardship, pains and penury. There is no known instance of any of the state governors responsible for this mindless decimation of their workers’ wellbeing having stopped salaries of public officials in the affected states nor have stopped the undeserved and bogus pensions they pay to ex-governors and other public officials as a sign of regard and commitment to their workers salary as first line priority. Not one instance yet, and this speaks volumes of the sense of service lacking in these states some of whose governors just handed over the huge debt portfolio to their successors.
A government should at all times maintain, and comply with the provisions of the law. This responsibility is one that has been entrusted on them, neither by providence nor circumstances but by the constitution to which all persons, including the government, must submit. Section 1(1) Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (CFRN) as amended provides thus “this Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on the authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” The Labour Act having been passed by the legislature, pursuant to enabling powers from the constitution, must be obeyed by private and public employers, including the government.
Any contravention of the Act should therefore be seen as a direct contravention of the Constitution that must not be tolerated by the society, and to which such violators must face the wrath of the law irrespective of their status as private or public organisations.
Civil servants are the minds through which government responsibilities are undertaken. They ensure the implementation of government policies and directive principles of the constitution. They assist the government in carrying out the responsibilities assigned to her, responsibilities that cannot be subrogated to other sections of the Nigerian society.
Therefore, every government that is serious about fulfilling the responsibilities that has been saddled on her must ensure that civil servants are properly and timely paid their salaries and benefits. Provision of Infrastructural development need not be at parallel lines, or be mutually exclusive with payment of workers’ salary.
While it is necessary to commit to infrastructural development, it must be noted by every government that the law does not command the impossible. As such, pretending to undertake misplaced infrastructural elephant projects at the detriment of workers’ basic welfare is an affront on the rights to human dignity of the affected workers.
The Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy as enshrined in Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) does not encourage the starvation of any class of people including civil servants.
Section 16 (1) of the Constitution provides that the government shall “control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity. Section 16 (2) (b) further directs that “the material resources of the nation are harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good.” It is, therefore, imperative that every government must find a balance between the welfare of the civil servants and the infrastructural development of the society.
The failure of the government in securing the welfare of the civil servants and the lack of attendant enforceable sanctions and remedy for the mass of affected workers, indicts our Labour Law as too weak to bring the government in check when it abuses workers mass rights as currently being done.
While a short term resolution is being expected to assuage the needless pains Civil Servants have been put through over the months, it would be necessary to re-evaluate the Labour Act to meet with the new dynamic labour challenges that workers are facing.
Perhaps, it is time to make payment of workers’ salaries the priority before any public official is paid. If workers cannot be paid, we can as well not pay public officials who are responsible for the proper, or improper, management of the resources in the first place. Sanctions and penalties for defaulters of the Act, which is inclusive of the government, should be better spelt out, and enforced.
In provision of sanctions and penalties, the amendment must not only criminalise the breach but also provide for compensation for the aggrieved workers. An effective system must also be developed to ensure that such breaches are reported while also providing for the non-victimisation of the whistle-blower.
Fortunately, the newly inaugurated administration in setting a new agenda for the country has emphasised the indispensable role of the Nigerian worker, and the Labour Unions. It would therefore be instructive that the new government pays proper attention to the plight of the workers and ensure that their salaries and benefits are paid promptly, and likewise must not turn a blind eye to the perpetual refusal of some state and local government to pay salaries of their diverse workers.
It should ensure, in keeping up with “Change” mantra that it provides for a robust system that ensures a satisfying reward for workers. The new administration must also create a proper monitoring strategy that tracks private employers who also breach the provisions of the Law with respect to prompt payment of workers’ due salaries.
The new administration must not just seek to create jobs for the unemployed but also seek to keep the employed paid so that the fundamental objectives of the state can be achieved.
It would be a disaster that the new administration, which has the goodwill of the masses, including the currently oppressed Civil Servants, should fail in providing a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework that ensures the betterment of workers’ welfare in Nigeria.
- Akinpelu is a Lagos based lawyer